Not enough of our society is trained how to understand and interpret quantitative information. This activity is a centerpiece of science literacy to which we should all strive-the future health, wealth, and security of our democracy depend on it. Until that is achieved, we are at risk of making under-informed decisions that affect ourselves, our communities, our country, and even the world.

When I grew up I assembled my role models à la cart. I wanted to be an astrophysicist. If I tried to find a role model who grew up in the Bronx with my skin color who was an astrophysicist, I would never have become an astrophysicist.

When you're advancing a frontier it stimulates creativity to find solutions.

The tenacity of life is mind-boggling. We keep finding it where no one thought it could be.

We can trace the elements. They were forged in the centers of high-mass stars that went unstable at the ends of their lives, they exploded, scattered their enriched contents across the galaxy, sprinkled into gas clouds that then collapsed and formed stars and planets and life.

I'm just recommending you find other things to base your spirituality on, rather than where science is yet to tread.

If each dead person became a ghost, there'd be more than 100 billion of them haunting us all. Creepy, but cool.